Pages

Free Shipping on Bulk Ammo -- TargetSportsUSA.Com!

Friday, May 29, 2015

Head on over to Blue Collar Prepping for a review of a rather nifty gadget -- a flashlight/radio/solar-panel-and-dynamo-crank changer -- and see how it compares to an older version of it that I bought back in 2009.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Yes, I'm phoning it in this week. I'm a bit flu-ish and can't concentrate, but I'll be back next week taking a hypothetical look at the hypothetically leaked Supergirl pilot. In the meantime, enjoy Sausage.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Since I didn't post anything on Monday about guns, and because I feel a bit guilty for phoning it in yesterday with "My Little Tyafelm," I now give you a threefer: a fun/funny post about a gun, and then Traveller stats for it.

So this is a Monday Gunday Tuesday Traveller Wednesday Night Wackiness post.

Some of you may remember that about three years ago I blogged about the Arsenal Firearms 2011, aka the double-barrel 1911. If not, I shall quote myself:

I... I don't know what to say about it. This is like the Michael Bay (or possibly Rob Liefeld) of handguns: It's bulky, heavy, expensive, overblown, and prone to massive overkill.

On the other hand, I can't deny the effectiveness of firing two bullets at once; there's a reason that police learn the "double tap" method of shooting, and this gives an effective double tap with a single trigger pull.

English needs a word that adequately describes "possessing qualities both sublime and repugnant."

If you had forgotten about it, that's all right; I had forgotten about it, too until I saw this video on Jerry Miculek's Lederhosen page:

Traveller Stats: Since .45 caliber is 11.43 millimeters, I shall use the stats for the 12mm Heavy Autopistol (Central Supply Catalog, p.65) as the baseline for a stock 1911:

Yes, that looks about right, although traditional 1911s have a magazine capacity of 7.

Extrapolating from that, the Traveller 2011 would look like this:

Recoil is derived from the notion that, since many of the components are fused, it's not quite as as strong as if you were shooting two pistols in the same hand.

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

About this time last month, a fellow on the Traveller Facebook group talked about turning characters from The Wizard of Oz into Traveller PCs. This, naturally, got me to thinking about statting up one of my favorite shows...

My Little Droynie
My Little Droynie
Ah ah ah ah....
My Little Droynie
I used to wonder what tyafelm could be
My Little Droynie
Until you shared iskyar with me!

Twilight SparkleLeader caste. Smartest and with the strongest magical psi powers of them all, Twilight is the natural leader of the group. (Princess Celestia, her mentor, easily fits the mold of Yaskoydray, and Spike makes an obvious un-casted chirper.)

RaritySport caste. She is clearly the most diplomatic of all the ponies, and is most likely to go off for solo adventures.

Pinkie PieDrone caste. Pinkie is all about community -- she knows the names and birthdays of everypony within ponyville, knows what everypony likes/loves/needs, and throws coming of age parties. Clearly she'd run casting ceremonies for young Droyne.

FluttershyTechnician caste. A bit of a stretch, this one, but Flutters is well-versed in biology, ecology, and veterinary medicine, and technicians are the ones most schooled in the hard sciences.

Rainbow DashWarrior caste. 'Nuff said.

ApplejackWorker caste. She doesn't just value honesty and hard work, she THRIVES on it, and will work to exhaustion to help others.

Turn their various magical powers into psi talents (Rarity and Twilight have Telekinesis, Twilight has Teleportation, Fluttershy has high levels of Telepathy for use on animals, Dashie and AJ have Awareness to boost their physical stats, and only Yaskoydray knows what Pinkie has that allows her to break the 4th wall like that) and it actually works rather well to be honest...

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Adam and Sean talk about some really interesting stuff, including that "viral" photo where the man is walking on the "wrong" side. We also talk about people driving gasoline powered cars filling up at the only pump that has diesel, and that Waco biker shootout.

And Weer'd does another of his patented Audio Fisks, this time of the two Moms Demand Illegal Mayors for Everytown (A wholly owned subsidiary of Michael Bloomberg, Inc) anti-gun ads from North Carolina and Texas.

Thanks for downloading, listening, and subscribing. And don't forget to tell a friend! (Have you "liked" The GunBlog VarietyCast on Facebook?)

Download these to your laptop, tablet or e-reader so you'll always have them in an emergency. (And this is why I carry a solar charger in my bug-out bag -- so I can always power my electronic library!)

Thursday, May 21, 2015

A few weeks ago, the 'man-o-sphere' (a collective name for various men's rights and tangentially-related movement's websites and adversarial boogeyman to its it equally-silly-named counterpart, the fempire) erupted in a chaotic backlash after seeing Mad Max: Fury Road, saying that it was all a big distraction to preach feminism at hapless, unsuspecting men, and that MRAs everywhere were boycotting the film.

At least, that's you'd think if you looked at initial headlines from trusted and totally-not-biased source The Mary Sue.

Now, I haven't seen the movie. I'm honestly not sure if I will, unless I catch it streaming somewhere at some point. I don't often go to the cinema; these days, it takes a major ticket to get me to go. Make it a Rifftrax Live or a Marvel film, and I'm there. But I've seen maybe one Mad Max film and I honestly wasn't that impressed. So I'll pass, but not because my man-jimmies are rustled, but because I'm still fresh off of Age of Ultron and waiting for Ant-Man. I'll probably pass on Jurassic World for now, even if it is 70s-era sexist (what's up, Joss?).

The original article that started this whole mess was posted on Return of Kings, which according to the linked “About” page is less 'men's rights' and more 'Al Bundy's NO MA'AM' by way of the 'He-Man Women-Hater's club.' I get a serious Poe's Law vibe off of Return of Kings and would doubt its very veracity were it not for being familiar with too many things on the opposite/nearest end of the gender-political horseshoe. Even according to its own publishedwork, they are ferventlyanti-MRA. But the three little letters, “MRA” are, as I stated earlier, an adversarial boogeyman to sites like The Mary Sue, who will conflate everyone from GamerGate to the GOP with that boogeyman in an attempt to discredit opposing – or even unrelated – viewpoints.
So
The Mary Sue published their article, and then everyone from The Verge to
The Daily Beast (seriously, who keeps giving Arthur Chu work?) to CNN picked it up and ran with it, not even
bothering to do their own research. So that one guy on a fringe gender
activist website, who hadn't even seen the movie,
turned into millions of angry misogynist MRAs angrily boycotting a
movie they hadn't seen... whilst simultaneously lauding a film full of
half naked women getting beaten up and run over as a feminist triumph
because the author of The Vagina Monologues (which, I'll have you
recall, included a 'good rape' in reference to a child being molested) was brought in as a consultant. Another clear case of why
TMS wins my vaunted “Intellectual Dishonesty Award.”

But,
as they often do, the narrative is once again shifting. Feminist
Frequency gave the movie a sound trouncing. Other sources are saying
it didn't do so well on the fem-front. Jezebel published the most
incomprehensible attempt at satire I've seen in my entire life.

I'm
just sitting here shaking my head, shrugging my shoulders, and going
'Meh.” If you like Max, I hope you managed to enjoy the movie
amidst the nonsense gender-politics war surrounding it. What is even journalism anymore? My head hurts.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

About 2 weeks ago I posted that fellow gunnie Nicki Kenyon needed financial assistance to help her evict two squatters (one of them a convicted child molester) from her house. I am pleased to report that, as of this writing, Nicki is over halfway to her goal.

As I mentioned in my previous post, any money which Nicki does not need for legal fees or other expenses (I have a feeling the squatters are going to trash the place before they're evicted) will be donated to a charity for homeless veterans. So no matter what happens, you know it will be used for a good cause!

Monday, May 18, 2015

Petty Gods Revised & Expanded Edition is a 396-page extravaganza of Old School goodness.

Expanded Petty Gods Compendium provides Old School referees with a slew of new, weird minor deities and godlings, for use in rounding out their campaigns. This book includes information for 327 petty gods, 116 minions, knights & servitors, 12 cults, dozens of divine items & new spells, plus a host of other petty-god-related gaming material!

I'm proud to say that I've left grubby fingerprints in this book. Not only does it contain Rasoob, the once-great God of Bronze (since eclipsed by gods of iron and steel), it also has within its august pages the magnificent countenance of Manidono, the Slacker God.

Thanks and gratitude go to Greg Gorgonmilk and Richard LeBlanc, without whom none of this would have happened. They rescued the Petty Gods manuscript from limbo and turned it into a magnificent magnum opus of D&D geekery.

And I'm the person who contributed the deific equivalent of a Flumph to the mix.

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Adam and Sean meet once again to talk about all sorts of things from Felons Behaving Badly to traffic circles to people who think that death is an appropriate punishment for leaving your dog in the car.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Doctor Who fandom is a very strange,
varied, and fervent lot. You have your old-school fans who look upon
the new series and its fandom as trendy knockoffs and posers. You
have your new fans that started with Tennant or Smith, and have never
seen so much as a single episode of the original series. You have
fans that love both, and fans that viciously tear apart characters
and creators aside from their own personal favourites. Myself, I'm
aware of the flaws in the series, the sometimes stilted storytelling
and cheap effects of the classics and the weird pacing and oft-too
intense focus on romance in the new series, but love the show for all
of its flaws and and successes. My favourite Doctor, for the record,
is Sylvester McCoy (7), and my least-favourite is one I still have a
great deal of respect for, Jon Pertwee (3).

Russell T. Davies was the man who
launched the show again in 2005. He was the one who cast Eccleston
and Tennant, the one who created Rose Tyler, and the man responsible
for the show's rebirth. He's also the man who brought us the farting
Slitheen, the blowjob paving stone, and season 2 Rose Tyler. But he
was progressive in a good way, introducing a lot of diverse
characters and giving them some depth. We wouldn't have Captain Jack
Harkness (wink, smile) without him, and he was beloved by much of
fandom for this.

About six months or so before it was even announced, there was a great disturbance in the force. Steven Moffat, who had brought us "Blink", "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances" (Everybody lives!), and "The Girl in the Fireplace" (sob) was to take over the show from RTD. Maybe it's hyperbole, maybe it's me mis-remembering, but I'm sure there were cries of misogyny before "The Eleventh Hour" even aired. According to a very vocal section of fandom, Moffat hates women. Moffat's female characters are terrible. But what's the truth?

Rose Tyler: I like series 1 Rose Tyler. I do. She's a sweet, well-meaning girl from a rough neighbourhood who has a very small life. She's got a boyfriend she's not too serious about, and at this point in her life, they're good for each other. Then she starts traveling with the Ninth Doctor and her universe expands. She faces death without blinking. She saves the day a few times herself and points out the obvious when Nine overlooks it. But somewhere in the first 20 minutes or so of Series 2's "Tooth and Claw", she starts turning obnoxious and gobby, and her entire character devolves into fawning over the pretty 10th Doctor as she grows more and more detached from her roots.

Martha Jones: This one irritates me greatly. Martha is an accomplished young medical student, a doctor-in-training herself, ready to accept the fantastical and jump in with both feet. She maintains this greatness save for one flaw that destroys her character: she's got a crush on the 10th Doctor, and you can see the huffy sighs and irritated eye-rolling every time he mentions Rose. It isn't until she's forced to save the world herself that she finally realizes that she's got to get away from him, as it's unhealthy for her.

Donna Noble: Donna started off gobby and obnoxious, but in a relatable way. She's older than previous companions, but still working a shit job and living at home. She remains gobby and obnoxious, but grows into a more confident and capable person along the way. Then it's all undone with a tear-jerking slide back into mediocrity by the end with amnesia that will explode her head if she ever remembers and regains that confidence and competence.

Kylie Minogue: Kylie Minogue in a sexy cocktail waitress dress.

The Lady Christina de Souza: GOD DAMMIT RTD YOU COCKTEASE

I weep for what could have been.

So that's RTD. I am unimpressed. Let's
look at Moffat.

Amelia “Amy” Pond: Let's just overlook the fact that she's a nearly six foot tall Glaswegian redhead that seems genetically engineered to turn my head; Amy Pond is
a mess. When we meet her she is working as a stripper (shut up, she's a stripper, it's
a family show so they play it off as kiss-o-gram) and is emotionally
unbalanced because of the promise of adventure that is ripped away
from her as a child (YOU SAID FIVE MINUTES!!). She's got a boyfriend
whose relationship with her she promptly denies in their first encounter
with the Doctor, and then proceeds to walk all over him, pushing him
around and generally giving him no say in their relationship, to the
point of passive-aggressing him into divorce before a forced
reconciliation. Amy Pond is complex. She's a properly human and
fleshed-out character. She's not a very pleasant person, but she's
interesting.

River Song: Controversial, this
one. A lot of people can't stand River, and it's probably due to her
first few appearances, coming onto the scene like a proper Mary Sue,
with all the air of an established character with her 'sweeties' and
her 'spoilers.' I've heard a lot of complaints thrown in Moffat's
direction about how a 'strong female character' was brought low by
being turned first into a lunatic and then into a simpering weak
woman. The problem is, that's proper character development, but
shown in reverse, because we're seeing most of her life in reverse
order to the Doctor's timeline. River is born on Demon's Run,
kidnapped as a baby by religious zealots and brainwashed into
finding and murdering the Doctor before escaping, regenerating into
a rebellious young child who grows up with Amy, then regenerating
again when meeting the Doctor, attempting to murder him before
breaking her programming, then kidnapped and re-programmed to kill
him again. She then spends time in prison and the timeline is fuzzy,
but by the time we meet her in her first appearance she's the
capable and confident badass and has retroactively earned that sass
she displays. An interesting experiment in character building that I
enjoyed the more I watched.

Clara Oswald: Clara spent a year as a temporal construct, a person split into many people that existed for a short time long enough to save the Doctor from the Great Intelligence before he figured out the mystery that she was and retrieved her from the temporal winds of his own timeline. We don't meet the real Clara Oswald until the 50th anniversary special, where she begins to grow as a character, free from her duty to protect the Doctor from an omnipresent enemy. By the first episode with Capaldi's 12th Doctor, we have a much clearer picture of her: She's a teacher. She's got a life outside the TARDIS, and uses the Doctor as a weekend getaway. She's got control issues, and doesn't entirely trust him. She's incredibly awkward around someone she's got a romantic interest in, and adorably he mirrors that. And after the tragic events of last series finale, she's got even more room to grow.

Pictured: Control Issue.

In conclusion, I'm going to state very firmly that Steven Moffat writes better women than Russell T. Davies did. I say this for two reasons:

Moffat's companions don't define themselves by a romantic interest in the Doctor.

They're complex and relatable people.

I will credit Davies with Donna Noble (until her last episode), but that's all he's getting from me.

I have just been reminded that I haven't let anyone know how my mom is doing.

Her knee surgery went off without incident and she's home, taking a nap. She is in much less pain than she was 8 years ago when they operated on her other knee, and can hobble about effectively on her walker.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Thursday (May 14) my mother goes in for knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus. This isn't a very big deal, but she is 75 and slow to heal. Naturally this means I will be taking more of her duties while she recovers, which will be a MINIMUM of a week.

I'm not worried about the surgery, but prayers for a speedy and complete recovery will be most welcome!

While I will likely be able to continue my duties as Editrix/Chief Writer Flogger for Blue Collar Prepping, I will probably not have much time for doing my own writing. (That's why I didn't post anything yesterday and won't have a Traveller Tuesday today -- I'm doing my best to finish current projects before she goes under the knife.)

So don't be worried if I'm suddenly less chatty for a while! Just spare me a thought and maybe send me something silly.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

So last week, you may have noticed me taking Joss Whedon to task. I admit I was being harsh in my assessments, but there was a purpose behind it. This week, Joss Whedon would seem to have fallen down some stairs or walked into a doorknob, because angry feminists certainly didn't run him off of Twitter. That would just be horseshit. Feminists love Joss Whedon, and would never call him an absolute trash can or misogynist baloney man, threaten to ruin him, or demand that they fight him.

Oh.

So Age of Ultron came out and, keeping
to the barest minimum of spoilers here, some very vocal people got
mad. Like real mad. Butt-mad. Pee-pee hearted.

Joss Whedon is
now both racist and misogynist. The racism comes from Quicksilver and
Scarlet Witch, both of which are of Roma and Jewish heritage in the
comics, having been cast as two clearly white actors and now being
portrayed as 'nazi sympathizers.' Now, Romani people hailing
originally from India, I can kind of see how not casting them with
slightly darker complexioned actors might be a valid complaint,
except that no one complained about the lily-white kids in Days of
Future Past, and they're portrayed as slavic in AoU mostly due to
Marvel not having the rights to Magneto. As for the 'nazi
sympathizers' thing, Hydra isn't public knowledge in the MCU. I
sincerely doubt a couple of mid-20s slavic kids are up to date on
WWII military history. The misogyny comes from a couple of places: Tony Stark's 'prima nocta' joke, and Black Widow being damseled and
mentioning her sterilization. I've gone back and forth with a few
people on the sterilization thing, and I'm pretty solidly falling on
the side of her meaning that her entire upbringing made her a monster
and the sterilization was there to identify with Banner, who
mentioned it first. Scarlet Witch's near-breakdown is also being
tossed about, but she's pretty unstable to begin with due to her
powers and I really don't think I'd fare too much better if my first
combat situation was an extinction-level event either. At least give
her credit that after Hawkeye's pep talk, she came out swinging and
cleared the field.

Widow was damseled, but then she was 1
on 1 with Ultron. Widow is a covert operative, so if you've thrown her
and Hawkeye on the field, you're already losing. In my opinion, they
shouldn't even be on the field in the first place. Thor and Hulk should be making
lots of noise while Widow and Hawkeye are taking out targets without
anyone knowing they're even there. So when Widow goes up against a
walking extinction-level event, I don't fault her for losing. I'm
calling bullshit on her not being able to unlock her cell door,
though. She could build a radio transmitter in a cave with a box of
scraps, but had to wait for Banner to shoot the lock off? Nah.

So for nearly a week, outrage was
directed at Joss Whedon. Vile insults and threats hurled his way. One
might even say... harassment. Laced, peppered, scattered, smothered,
and chunked with social justice terminology and gender/racial
commentary. But it couldn't be harassment, because I've not heard it
called that by the news outlets covering it. Strange, is it not, when in one
situation any form of criticism -- from mild and constructive to obscene
and overt -- is directed at, say, a pop culture critic, it's harassment
and threats, but it's not harassment when another group with even more extreme
intensity directs it at a different person. No bad tactics,
only bad targets, eh?

Keep pushing, Patton. You'll get there.

Then, something strange happened. The
narrative shifted. The headlines went from “did angry feminists run
Joss Whedon off of Twitter?” to “Angry feminists did NOT run Joss
Whedon off of Twitter.” With all the familiar vocabulary of someone
all too familiar with glass ashtrays being hurled at his head and
walking on eggshells around a volatile significant other, Whedon made
a public statement. No, he says, it's not that at all. I'm totally
used to that (which I find even more disturbing). They did nothing
wrong, so please don't think badly of them.Even his last tweet,
thanking everyone for being so kind before closing out his account, reminds me of the last words I spoke to my ex-wife before I moved
out, that all I wanted was the best for her. Said mostly so that
things didn't turn ugly as I was walking out the door. I hope someone
appreciates him falling on his sword for the cause.

Still,
it feels like some self-awareness may be dawning here, especially inthis section:

“Every breed of feminism is attacking every other breed, and every sub-section of liberalism is always busy attacking another sub-section of liberalism, because god forbid they should all band together and actually fight for the cause.”

Even seems some other people that have recently been complicit in holding up dodgy narratives have buckled under the strain. I also find it interesting that he says “literally the second person” to call and make sure he was okay was saintly Anita Sarkeesian, especially considering her writer and producer Jonathan McIntosh had no hesitation in shitting on Age of Ultron's 'hyper-masculinity' from a great height.

Pictured: Jonathon McIntosh shitting upon AoU from a great height.

Anyway. We all know the reason Joss quit Twitter was because I railed on him last week. Correlation, causation, and all that. I'm taking full responsibility for it. I am all-powerful! I will crush the lesser races, conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! UNLIMITED RICE PUDDING!

Now maybe I can get on with my next waifu-shitting fit that I've been delaying for like six months. Here's a hint, in proper Whedonesque style. It's two words: Doctor...

Monday, May 4, 2015

Nicki Kenyon is the dynamite gal who blogs at The Liberty Zone and contributes the Foreign Policy for Grownups segment on the Gun Blog Variety Cast. If you've read the one, you know that she's incredibly sharp-witted (in both senses of the word -- she's so inventive with her invective that she's managed to make me blush on occasion), and if you've listened to the other, you know that she's incredibly smart and on-point. She's also managed to raise a daughter who has since become a Marine, and in her copious amounts of free time (when she's not working two jobs) she also rescues Saint Bernard dogs.

Basically, I'm proud to call Nicki a friend, and I want to be exactly like her when I grow up.

The thing is, though, she's been the victim of exceptionally crappy luck as of late, and so she needs our help. I encourage you to read about it in her own words...

... but here's the TL;DR version: Nicki has a house that she's trying to sell, but the people who were renting it from her have 1) Stopped paying rent, 2) are actively sabotaging her attempts to sell it, and 3) have lied in court in order to keep staying there (without paying rent) until a trial can, hopefully, force them out.

Oh, and most importantly, the husband is a convicted child molester (which Nicki didn't know at the time she let them rent, obviously).

So now Nicki has to raise funds in order to retain a lawyer so that she can force the squatters out, all while continuing to pay a mortgage on a house she can't sell until this is over. Since she clearly needs financial assistance, a friend started a GoFundMe fundraiser on her behalf.

Here is what's in it for you to contribute:

The satisfaction of helping a sister gunnie, an Army veteran, and strong pro-gun voice on the internet. That's both "voting your politics" and good karma all at once.

The good clean fun of kicking thieving, child-molesting scum square in the nuts. Who knows, if Nicki wins the trial decisively he might even go back to jail for fraud and perjury.

The knowledge that if she gets more money than she needs. she will donate the excess money to charity for homeless veterans.

The personal gratitude of Nicki, her husband Rob, and myself.

But wait! There's more!

Maybe you don't want to just give money away. Maybe you want to get yourself a little something, too? Well, say no more! How would you like the chance to win a fabulous prize? How would you like TWO chances??

Dennis Badurina, of Dragon Leatherworks, is auctioning off these handsome 1911 holsters individually, with ALL PROCEEDS being donated to Nicki's defense fund.

What's more, these are special edition holsters! You will notice the special "Sad Puppy" debossing done to the leather, meaning that not only will the winning bid be donated to Nicki, but you will also make whiny SJWs cry just for bidding.

I believe the proper expression is "Shut up and take my money"? Well, here's where you go to shove money:

The Fine Print

Erin Palette is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

The Performer

erin DOT palette AT gmail DOT com

What others are saying about me

"I should just quit blogging at this point. The internets have been won, for all time. Well played, Erin Palette. Well played." -- MSgt B

"Erin's posts may not always be work safe but if there ever was a friend I had that I would be safe with, it's Erin." -- Brigid

" 'Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are Anger and Courage.' Augustine forgot the third, whose name is Erin." -- dovekie